Palestinians are victims of miscalculation

Listening to Hamas’s political leader Khaled Meshal on Al-Jazeera the other day, I got the impression that he wants the Israeli operation on Gaza to continue. It looked to me like he is calculating that Israel’s grossly disproportionate response to the al-Qassam Brigade’s rockets, and the images of Palestinian women and children being cut down in retaliation, will activate the world against Israel.

In other words, the fact that Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is insisting that these rockets are not killing anyone and thus implying they should be discounted in condemning Israel’s response, is misguided. The rockets are clearly calculated to have the effect they are having, which is inviting Israeli retaliation.

Otherwise no responsible Hamas leader would allow them to be continually used, seeing as the only result they are having is the death of innocent Palestinians. If my impression is correct, Hamas’ position amounts to gambling with Palestinian lives.

Israel has, of course, long since lost the image war and its reputation is in shreds. The fact that its actions are being compared to those of Nazi Germany’s in many parts of the world does not appear to disturb the Israeli conscience either. 

To the contrary, Israelis are sitting on hills with beer and Coca Cola cans in hand cheering on the Israeli military as it rains indiscriminate death and destruction on the people of Gaza. Meanwhile, Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu has powerful western leaders saying Israel has the right to self-defense.

He actually has it even better this time, seeing the indifference to the plight of the Palestinians on the part of Arab governments, which is also driving Erdoğan to infuriation. So...